Day 9- 19 (July 2016)

Day 9
Today has been a special day for me as its my 15th birthday... And I'm spending it in Beijing!
I woke up to Dannielle wishing me happy birthday. I got a birthday card, sweets, sparkly hair grips and a bracelet from everyone including Mrs Hudson. I was really happy and loved all the presents.
In the morning we had 3 hours of Chinese lectures, where we learnt how to say what we want to be when we are older and we practised our numbers again. We also compared the price of different foods in the UK compared to China... Fruit is so expensive in the UK! Our teacher Abner told us that everyone eats out a lot in China because the food is so cheap. He was really shocked aswell that we can buy one apple or banana in the UK. He said that if you tried to do this in China you would be kicked out of the supermarket. 
After lunch we visited the sun island. This is a large area which is very peaceful and  has lots of different lakes, parks and even a huge waterfall. We all got in a open motor train that took us round the sun island. It was such a lovely place, we even went on a peddle boat which was so much fun and everyone sang happy birthday to me. We took lots of photos at the waterfall as it was so beautiful and we were able to walk through a tunnel underneath it, where we all got sprayed.
After the waterfall we jumped back on our train and it took us over to another area of the island to visit the ice sculpture building. We had to put on giant insulated leg warmers and a huge coat - we all looked hilarious (Mrs hudson took lots of photos of us!). Then we entered the ice building ... Everything inside was made of ice. We wandered around and looked at all the beautifully coloured ice sculptures. These were all lit as well with coloured lights. Our guide Grace told us that this is what Harbin looks like in the winter and they have the ice sculptures all over the city - it's famous! There was also an ice slide which we could go on using a sledge and Rosie and Alex B went on this. We all bought a little souvenir from the gift shop on the sun island and Alex DLB bought a selfie stick and then ran around taking funny sneaky selfie photos with everyone.
After this we headed back to the hotel. We had dinner and Mrs hudson arrived with a birthday cake and candles on it. Everyone in the dinner hall sang happy birthday to me.
We all had the chocolate brownie cake and it was delicious (apart from Rosie because she's vegan). We also shared the cake with our student guide Joy. 
After dinner we could choose to go to Chinese knot tying or to play sports in the stadium. Everyone went to knot tying apart from Jack who went to play a badminton match against friends from another school. Joy met us on our way to knot tying and gave me a little birthday present - an anklet, it was really nice.
Chinese knots was taught by a master of knot tying and some of her designs were amazing. It was brilliant and we all made very simple Chinese knots with tassels.
After this Dannielle and I went for a run on the track as we were feeling very tired. Then we all went back to Alex and Rosie's room and played card games. This was a perfect end to a perfect birthday. 
I am so happy that I was able to celebrate my birthday with these amazing guys and Mrs Hudson in China.  

Roxana